OUR BABY IS A ONE YEAR OLD!

I generally find it hard to believe that a year and some change ago I was preparing for a c-section to meet our little Camaroni.

This post rounds out a year of Cam updates on my blog; his first 365 days documented here every 3 months or so. In a way, these posts have been how people have gotten to know him. They have served a dual purpose: an artifact for us and a close to real-time way for friends and family to read about what Cam is like.

March 2020 will always be a standout month for us. It is the month we became parents. Of course it is also a time that bears significance for the world…

Life is (still) different from what we were used to. And because of that, Cam’s first Christmas was just the 3 of us. I can explain it as wonderfully weird. Weird because we didn’t imagine friends and family being physically absent during Baby’s First Christmas. Wonderful because … it was Baby’s First Christmas! We managed to incorporate a few family traditions while also sampling new tastes for the holiday.

You know we had to get matching jams to sleep and wake up in on 12/25. I remember my sister and I opening new jams on Christmas Eve (matching before it was trendy, mind you) so there were sweet ties to the past doing this with Cam. Mike and I also prepped his mom’s famous Land of Nod bread to bake for breakfast.

In a pandemic plot twist, we were actually able to join a tradition we typically miss. Most years we are in Canada for Christmas and I miss opening presents with my stepdad’s family on Christmas Eve. In 2020 though, everyone was virtual. (I might need the family to set up a computer for me to join from afar in the years to come.:) Cam was spoiled with sweet gifts while Mike and I indulged in a charcuterie.

Christmas charcuterie!!!? Sounds like a new tradition to me.

On Christmas we woke up and opened more gifts, munching on Land of Nod and sipping coffee. Of course this was all before 9am because kids wake up so early! Hah. The next few days were spent cozied up watching Christmas movies (all THREE of The Santa Claus movies in rotation), getting endless Cam cuddles, and generally enjoying the magic of the holidays with a little one.

Excitedly Cam was able to meet his cousins a few days later (!!!) when Mike’s sister and her family had an overnight layover in San Francisco en route to Melbourne. We met them outside and stayed distanced at a park near their hotel. What a strange time. Overall we were grateful that we at least got to see them but it was hard when Ella wanted to hold and play with her baby cousin and she couldn’t. How do you really explain what a pandemic is to kids? Waaaah.

Over the holidays, Cam was waking up almost every night around 8pm. What!? Since we didn’t have work the next morning, we broke the Parenting Rules and let him come downstairs to watch movies with us but we knew the habit couldn’t last.

It turns out he had outgrown his early 5pm/5:30pm bedtime and could hang for about an hour longer. Since then he’s stuck to a mostly consistent schedule of waking up between 6am – 7am, taking his first nap 2 hours later (between 8 – 9am) for about an hour and then his second/last nap 3 hours after (between 12pm – 1pm). He goes to sleep for the night 4 hours after he wakes up from his last nap, which is typically around 6pm. I love having him awake for the extra hour because it’s usually the only time all 3 of us spend together (aside from the weekends). It’s actually hard to imagine life pre-pandemic and how long day care/office hours were. If Cam went to day care – like we had planned before covid – I would have dropped him off at 7am and picked him up around 5pm; leaving about one hour to spend with him all day. The positives of the pandemic are very few and far between but spending so much time with Cam is at the top of our list. (I think I write that in all of these updates.)

We had some really nice weather in the early part of the year – even by California standards – and were able to walk to a local park and have a few picnics. Soaking up the sun on a sprawling blanket? Count me in every time. And twice on Sundays when it includes a trip to the Farmer’s Market for pastries (which has become a family favorite).

Cam experienced his first Inauguration Day and, whew, what a slice of history. Obviously he didn’t know what was going on but it was a really emotional day for me. Such hope for his future and our country. God bless!

Around this time, Cam also discovered we have stairs. He LOVES to climb on everything. Mike’s parents (Nannie & Grandpy) got him a kid-sized chair that he scurries up on – smiles huge at us like “look at me being so big and the cutest ever” – and tries to get up on the couch.

Cam has a few party tricks now. My favorite being when we say “YAAAAAY!” he starts aggressively clapping. He takes clapping very seriously and has the look of pure determination in his eyes as he slaps his little baby hands together.

It tickles me that we don’t even call it clapping though… I will literally say to him, “can you do ‘yay?'” and that is his cue.

Ya know how they say you learn what your babies different cries mean? Cam doesn’t really cry that much but he does his “baby grunts” and we (kind of) know what each one means. There is the low, throaty excited grunt. And his quick, almost squawk like I-want-this-grunt. He also sometimes just shouts really loud but closes his eye when he does it. Like he knows, this is going to be real loud and I’m ready for it.

Recently he’s added pounding the floor with both hands and making …gorilla noises? to his lofty hand gestures. Mike and I often join in the pounding which cracks him up, and then, in turn, makes us laugh.

Since we’re still working from home, we decided to unconventionally hang a swing for him in our room. Under other circumstances, it would have gone outside but sometimes when we’re double booked for meetings, we need to put Cam somewhere that he can’t really move from – and that he enjoys so our colleagues don’t hear him cry (or frustrated grunt) while we are trying to present. Luckily Cam loves the swing and it dose the trick every time. He’s joined many Upwork meetings swinging peacefully behind me.

Aside from swings, Cam loves; Trash Truck on Netflix, goat cheese (still), watermelon, pureed soups or food with a bit of spice to them, playing with cars and trains (complete with the “buuurrrrummm” sound), typing on dad’s keyboard, mom’s snuggles and silly antics, being INDEPENDENT, bath time, and going on walks, especially if there is a pitstop at the park for a ride in the “outside” swings.

Recently, Cam went from his signature army crawl to mastering the regular, on all fours crawl, after lots of practice with my mom. He has started to pull himself up on everything and has done a few seconds of free standing but isn’t quite walking. He likes books but is a speed reader so you have to talk fast.

Cam continues to be a good sleeper, aside from a 6-7 day rebellious stint he played where he would immediately pull himself up to standing the second we put him in his crib and start crying and crying. It seemed to come on out of nowhere and gave me a good scare that my easy sleeper had vanished. Luckily he’s back into his regular good-sleeping grove, more or less. I have a theory that he sleeps way better if we give him a big portion of oatmeal for dinner… Keeping the oats in full stock over here!

He’s just the happiest, sweetest little baby and I feel like the luckiest person to be his mom. I love you.